Labor Quotes - page 38
The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but last fruits also.
Henry David Thoreau
If Walter Bagehot was right that "one of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea,” Ken caused an extraordinary amount of pain. Both in his economic thinking and in his political activities, he was dedicated to resisting, and where possible overturning, what he famously called "conventional wisdom” (one of his many turns of phrase that have since become commonplace locutions). Rejecting the standard economic theory based on small, anonymous households and firms that autonomously engage in perfectly functioning markets, Ken instead saw an economic stage dominated by large, nameable actors: big business, big labor, big government. Sorting out their roles and respective power was central to his analysis, and the continually shifting tensions in the interplay among them-"countervailing power” in another of his deft phrases-was the real story of how an economy behaved.
Amartya Sen
Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer. ... Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow or beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue.
Plotinus
The socio-technical concept arose in conjunction with the first of several field projects undertaken by the Tavistock Institute in the coal-mining industry in Britain. The time (1949) was that of the postwar reconstruction of industry in relation to which the Institute had two action research projects.(2) One project was concerned with group relations in depth at all levels (including the management/labor interface) in a single organization - an engineering company in the private sector. The other project focused on the diffusion of innovative work practices and organizational arrangements that did not require major capital expenditure but which gave promise of raising productivity. The former project represented the first comprehensive application in an industrial setting of the socio-clinical ideas concerning groups being developed at the Tavistock.
Eric Trist
4th. Savings in labor: (a) By the lowness of the walls... (b) in the use of unskilled labor in building walls, by backing the face stones with concrete, and placing the face stones in the forms dry without the use of mortar, except for pointing... (c) in the simplification of woodwork, especially in the hanging of windows and doors, and in the setting of trim... (d) in the application of hardware, chiefly on account of the kind of hinges used... (e) in the standardization of parts and the use of similar members... (f) by cutting about one-half the labor in the installation of plumbing drainage... and (g) by the greater use of machine and shop work, which the exposed structural members permit of.
Ernest Flagg
Kailash Satyarthi has dedicated his life to helping the millions of children in India who are forced into slavery and work in torrid conditions. His award is an acknowledgement of the tireless, decades-long campaigning by civil society activists on child trafficking and child labor in India.
Salil Shetty
It has been said that the modern world is divided between the hot and hasty pursuit of affairs in the hours of labor, and the no less eager chase of pleasure in the hours of leisure. But even our pleasures are calculated and business like. We measure our enjoyments by the sum expended. Our salons are often little better than bazaars of fashion.
Felix Adler
There is a phase of this matter which is both interesting and serious. The farmer has always produced the foodstuffs to exchange with the city dweller for the other necessities of life. This division of labor is the basis of modern civilization. At the present time it is threatened with breakdown.
George C. Marshall
My own conviction is that if the transfer cannot be made without civil war, it cannot be made at all, and that there is a reasonable probability that, if the government is supported by a considerable majority of citizens and if it is re-enforced by a powerful labor movement and cooperative movement, the change may be brought about without armed resistance from the owning class. The program that I have outlined is, of course, that of the Socialist Party of America, although not all Socialists will agree with everything that I have written.
Kirby Page
